Talk:The Lord of the Rings

Is "Sexuality in The Lord of the Rings" a notable topic?

I've come across Sexuality in The Lord of the Rings page, created in 2022 by Chiswick Chap. While I’m not an expert on Tolkien or LOTR, I'm unsure whether this subtopic meets notability criteria. From my perspective, it appears to be a rather niche academic subject.

If sexuality were truly a significant aspect of the work, I would expect it to be addressed within the main article. However, there is not a single references to "sex" or "sexuality" there.

Added a brief mention. There are hundreds of articles in the Tolkien and Middle-earth templates, and not all of them are necessarily linked up here at the top level; many are linked in subsidiary articles, forming a tree or hierarchy of coverage from the most general to the most specific. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:42, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps someone with more experience in this area could consider whether the sexuality topic should be integrated into the main article. Otherwise, I'm in favor of the orphan page deletion. 87.116.181.138 (talk) 19:07, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

The article is cited to 30 Reliable (Secondary) Sources, not counting the Tolkien sources for the primary materials mentioned in the article and by the secondary sources. As a rule of thumb, editors generally take anything with more than about 3 reliable sources providing substantial coverage to be notable, so we are far above that threshold here. The sources are diverse, including Tolkien's biographer John Garth, the LGBTQ writer David LaFontaine, feminists like Penny Griffin, Christian theologians like Ralph Wood, and scholars of communication, fantasy, and literature as well as of Tolkien himself. You may note, too, that the article impartially covers differing views on each of several topics: love and marriage, on female monsters, and on same-sex relationships. This is a wide-ranging and encyclopedic article firmly rooted in published sources. As for merging, that is a non-starter as it would grossly unbalance whatever article it was added to with its detailed discussion of a single topic. The article is not an orphan either, as it is linked from multiple articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:35, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

While the article is cited to many sources, I’m still uncertain whether the topic is truly significant enough to warrant a standalone page, especially given that it doesn’t seem to merit a section in the main article. Additionally, I was curious about other articles that link to your article. It appears that many of the inlinks come from the fact that you’ve added it to the LOTR template (dif}, which is likely why the "What links here" tool shows so many hits. Since there’s no easy way to filter out template links, do you recall any in-text, contextual links from other articles? If the topic is notable, I would expect many such mentions. 87.116.181.138 (talk) 21:59, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Incidentally, in the Template, the Sexuality article is listed under the Themes subheading. However, the Themes of The Lord of the Rings article does not mention the words sexuality or sex. Is this an oversight, or is there a lack of confidence in considering this topic a notable theme? 87.116.181.138 (talk) 02:37, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

You are correct on this point, it was an oversight, now corrected. Given the scale and complexity of the whole subject of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, not everything can fit together perfectly: there's no reason to invent conspiracy theories about single missing edits. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:03, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I also noticed that you created the redirect page Same-sex relations in The Lord of the Rings. [1] While I appreciate this effort to increase visibility, I’m curious why similar redirects haven’t been created for other sections mentioned in your article, if those sections are considered equally important and notable. I’d be interested to hear what other editors have to say, but based on my reading, it seems that the whole article is at risk of being a WP:COATRACK. 87.116.181.138 (talk) 22:15, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

An article on a topic cannot be a coatrack on that topic; the term means going off on an extended hobbyhorse on politics or other irrelevant subject.

Redirects are for readers' convenience and have nothing to do with notability. We can certainly have a redirect for each of these chapters, however. Chiswick Chap (talk) 02:41, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I think you've made some interesting points. There is an unfortunate tactic (current trend?) to force modern ideas into Tolkien, but Love is a large theme in the Lord of the Rings; primarily brotherly love/camaraderie/fraternity; this Band of Brothers sort of love, romantic love takes a back seat unlike other prominent comparative stories. I think the idea of melotorno and fraternity ought to be expanded. As Love is a major theme of Lord of the Rings, a more accurate title would be Love in The Lord of the Rings.Halbared (talk) 09:27, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Interesting. I suspect that Love in The Lord of the Rings would need to be a separate article, as three of the four loves have nothing to do with sexuality, and the theme of the fourth one is not exclusively about sex either. Several scholars have written about love in the work so the potential is there. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:32, 7 April 2025 (UTC)